Anna Delenn - Why Anfisa Forget All. Or Just The drunk book

Translator Miya Mo

Editor Privy Advisor

© Anna Delenn, 2020

© Miya Mo, translation, 2020

ISBN 978-5-4498-6052-1

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Sometimes it seems to us that reality is what it really is. Or maybe reality is what we really want? And what can we want and what do our desires and wishes consist of? If we look at every moment of a tiny desire, then it turns out that desire is a need, without which we cannot move on to our main desire. But what is desire?

Thinking about this, ideas come to me that true desire is only a state of goodness, silence, happiness. And it doesn’t matter how it was achieved. This is a moment between the past and the future, in which lies the elusive mystery of being. Each such moment advances us towards awareness, despite the piles of endless memories of already non-existent realities.

In this book, I described the condition of a girl who is afraid to dream. And once she allowed herself to dream, she found herself in constantly changing stories. Since these fantasies already lived in her head, situations developed faster than she had time to think. And so her dreams are already an established reality.

Hurry – rather not be too late… Running around puddles and people, Anfisa ran faster and faster. Recall – recall the city in which she was going to come, but what is it called?…Creamy Shores or what?…She must run! She cannot stop and look at her ticket. She has no time.

Maybe Lucy, my girlfriend, remembers. She remembers everything.

– Lucy, hello! Where am I going? – Anfisa asked in a hurry.

– You’re back for the old!? To Sunny Beach or the North Valley, – said Lucy and she got off the phone.

Oh Yes! Exactly! Running into the station platform, Anfisa saw a train. Here it is, my train!

– Where is my ticket? – surprised Anfisa. – Probably in my purse! Where is my purse? It’s not here. I don’t have it!

Anfisa looked around. There is only a huge old suitcase standing next to her, and as addition to it, grandfather’s boots and an old mother’s fur coat on her.

– I told my mother for a long time: Throw away that old fur coat, you always keep old stuff! – grumbled Anfisa. After searching in her pockets, she found a ticket for the tram. – Oh, I got this ten-years-old ticket and the number on it is lucky. Okay, I’ll check it later.

– So where is my ticket?” – excited Anfisa. – Time is running out and the train is about to leave.

Seeing the train conductor, she ran to him and panted, asked:

– Dear, you know, I have such a situation. Here is the train, I need to get on!

– Your ticket! – He said in a stern voice. – You all have a situation!!! Your ticket.

– You know…, – mumbled Anfisa.

– Ma’am, where are you going?”

– To Sunny Shores!

– This train goes to Tyumen.

– Oh, for sure! I just forgot the name.

– You won’t go anywhere without a ticket, and yours is only suitable for the tram, and even then it is ten years ago.

The train started moving and Anfisa, standing on the platform, watched as people jump into the train cars. – Why can’t I? – she muttered to herself. – Oh, I can’t with this heavy fur coat and a suitcase. They are so heavy, and even these huge grandfather’s boots too. I’m so tired, I better to sit down on a bench.

The train, gaining speed, went further and further. And Anfisa didn’t even have the strength to be upset, she only remembered the inscription on the last train car, Grandmother’s Village.

And now she seemed to understand everything. After all, everything is logical: boots, an old suitcase, mother’s fur coat, a ticket for the tram with a happy number 771199.

– When was it? – began to recall Anfisa. – Ten years ago. I was only fifteen. My mom and I probably went for a present for me. It was winter… Yes, I remember this mother’s fur coat…it‘s cold…the tram… a birthday present. This was probably the year when I really wanted a new phone with a flashlight. But it was a terrible day, and that stupid birthday!

– Enough! I don’t want to remember this anymore! And indeed it was not then. Then when?

– But the ticket is happy!

– I remembered it now! Exactly, it was on the eve of the new year. My mother and I went to buy gifts, there was a terrible snowstorm. Mom grumbled all the way at me and there was a moment when I understood everything. It’s snowstorm, it’s cold, and I’m wearing a short trendy jacket, which I traded from a girl from another school, giving her my long awful coat!

– Yes, I understood everything. I was very cold and did not want any gifts, nothing, just to go home, under a warm blanket… Then I became very sick with a sore throat. Everything was horrible. I don’t even remember the new year.

– So, the ticket? – the chatter did not subside in Anfisa’s head. – Where is my ticket now? And where am I going in my mother’s fur coat and grandfather’s boots? And what is in this suitcase? Maybe there’s an answer to my long-standing question: Why am I so unhappy that I can’t even go on vacation normally?!

– How tired I am and hungry. And where am I now? How did I get here? – She looked to the left and saw the train station. – Yes exactly. I’ll go eat something. Where is my purse? There is money and a ticket should be there, probably. Oh yes, I don not have it. What to do then?

Anfisa lowered her eyes to the floor and there bill in a thousand were stuck under the leg of the bench she sits on.

– Oh wow, everything is perfect! So this is what the lucky ticket is about! It was not in vain that I found it, which means that the fur coat on me is not just by mistake! Of course it is old and too big a little bit.

– When is my vacation? – She reasoned with herself. – In summer! And I’m in a fur coat. Hmmm… horror! How hungry I am, I can’t think of anything else now! Food, and then everything else! Now I have enough for food and a new ticket. Oh, I am saved! Luck and blessing have always accompanied me through life!

– I’m so happy! But people around me not so…they are so gloomy, they all fuss, they run somewhere and everywhere, they invent all kinds of nonsense. Such a nightmare!

– Food-food… – With these words Anfisa got up from the bench and wandered off to look for a coffee shop. – What a strange day! Where do they eat here? I’ll find pointers. There is a waiting room over there and the dining room is to the right.

Entering the dining room she stood in line.

– Excuse me, Sir, are you the last?

– Yes!

For Anfisa everything here looks like in her former school cafeteria: the choice of menu is limited, the smell is peculiar, large tables, a lot of people and just as noisy. Such a strange and already forgotten sensation.

– I have to make a choice, what will I eat? – Anfisa asked herself and immediately answered. – I’ll probably take the soup and that salad.

– Girl, have you chosen? – the cashier asked.

– Yes, please, pea soup and carrot salad, as well as black tea. – Anfisa replied.

– Eight hundred and fifty.

– How much? So much? I don’t have enough for a ticket!!

– Take it or not? – the cashier said roughly.

– Yes! – Answered Anfisa holding out a crumpled bill found under the bench leg.

Anfisa picked up a tray of food and went to look for a table. But unfortunately all the tables were occupied! What to do? Yeah, there, at the end of the big dining room, one elderly man was sitting at the table. Hoping that he would not refuse her, Anfisa went there.